Iraq: Car bombs hit four areas in Baghdad

Iraq: Car bombs hit four areas in Baghdad

Four separate car bombs went off across Iraq, in mainly Shiite areas, on Tuesday, killing at least 13 people, Reuters reported.

The first car bomb went off in Sadr City, hitting a group of day laborers, killing at least eight people and wounding 24.

"We were all standing waiting to earn our living and all of a sudden it was like a black storm and I felt myself thrown on the ground," said Ahmed Ali, a 40-year-old laborer whose face and hair were burned by the explosion, Reuters reported. "I fainted for a while then I woke up and hurried to one of the cars to take me to the hospital.”

Shortly after another blast went off in Sadr City, killing at least another two people. Bombs then went off in Shula and Hurriya in Baghdad, the BBC reported.

A wave of bombings has been going on since American troops left Iraq last month, leaving at least 170 people dead, the Associated Press reported. Many of the attacks have targeted the Shiite Muslim community by suspected Sunni insurgents. Although insurgents have been behind a number of deadly attacks in recent years, there is little indication that the country will go back to the widespread sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007, the AP reported.

The recent violence has come during political unrest in Iraq. The country’s most prominent Sunni politician, Vice President Tariq al Hashemi, has denied accusations of terrorism charges against him and has fled to the Kurdish-controlled region in northern Iraq, the BBC reported. Authorities are still searching for him.

The Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, a Shiite, has also been accused of using the law in order to consolidate his grip on power by al Iraqiyya, a Sunni-based political bloc in parliament. The group is boycotting parliament and cabinet sessions in protest for a new prime minister.